Sovereign Immunity Bars Retroactive Monetary/Benefits Relief Against State Officials (Absent Ongoing Federal Violations), and § 1983 Claims Fail Without Nonconclusory Allegations of Personal Involvement

1. Introduction

Maltese v. Brown (2d Cir. Jan. 6, 2026) is a consolidated disposition of three pro se appeals—“Maltese I,” “Maltese II,” and “Maltese III”—arising from the dismissal of complaints against New York State officials/agencies and New York City officials/agencies. Although issued as a “SUMMARY ORDER” (expressly nonprecedential under the Second Circuit’s rules), the decision is a clear application of recurring doctrines: Eleventh Amendment/state sovereign immunity, the limited “prospective injunctive relief” pathway for official-capacity suits, and modern pleading standards under Twombly/Iqbal for § 1983 claims (including conspiracy allegations).

Parties and claims:

• Maltese I: Plaintiff-Appellant Maryann Maltese sued New York State Assemblyman Keith Brown, alleging she was negligently not issued a pension after retiring from the New York State Legislature. She sought retroactive monetary-type relief (31 years of “retroactive corrective earnings with tort interest”), academic degrees, and $30,000 in legal fees.
• Maltese II: Maltese sued New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the New York City Office of Labor Counsel, and Commissioner Renee Campione, alleging COVID-era failures tied to an executive order caused approximately $40,000 in retirement-account losses.
• Maltese III: Maltese sued Governor Kathy Hochul, Assemblyman Brown, State Senator Mario Mattera, and the New York State Board of Elections, alleging she was intentionally denied ballot access in a 2020 special election due to “gender bias” and a conspiracy involving Brown and the New York Independence Party.

Key issues: (i) whether official-capacity claims were barred by state sovereign immunity; (ii) whether the complaints pleaded actionable individual-capacity § 1983 claims with personal involvement; (iii) whether conclusory allegations—especially conspiracy claims—sufficed; and (iv) whether dismissal of the City claims could be affirmed on an alternative basis.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Second Circuit affirmed all dismissals.

• State Defendants (official capacity): claims were barred by state sovereign immunity because Maltese sought retrospective relief and did not allege an ongoing federal-law violation warranting prospective injunctive relief.
• State Defendants (individual capacity): claims failed for lack of allegations showing each defendant’s personal involvement; conclusory conspiracy assertions against Assemblyman Brown were inadequate.
• City Defendants: while the district court dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Second Circuit affirmed on the alternative ground that Maltese failed to state a claim because the complaint was conclusory and speculative.
• Motions on appeal: all denied.

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited and Their Role

A. Appellate review and procedural framing

• Kellogg v. Nichols — cited for de novo review of a motion-to-dismiss ruling, confirming the court’s independent assessment of both jurisdictional and pleading sufficiency issues.
• Clark v. Hanley — cited for the baseline motion-to-dismiss posture: accept well-pleaded facts as true and draw reasonable inferences for the plaintiff.
• Sharikov v. Philips Med. Sys. MR, Inc. — reinforces the pro se canon: filings are construed to raise the strongest claims they suggest, which the court applied by reading the complaints as attempting to proceed under § 1983 and as asserting both official- and individual-capacity claims.
• Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal — the central pleading standards: factual allegations must raise a plausible entitlement to relief; “mere conclusory statements” do not suffice.
• Jusino v. Fed'n of Cath. Teachers, Inc. — supports affirmance on any ground supported by the record, allowing the Second Circuit to uphold the Maltese II dismissal on Rule 12(b)(6) grounds even though the district court relied on Rule 12(b)(1).
• LoSacco v. City of Middletown — used to treat unchallenged dismissals as abandoned on appeal (here, dismissal for failure to serve certain defendants).

B. State sovereign immunity and official-capacity suits

• Baroni v. Port Auth. of N.Y. & N.J. — supplies the modern articulation of the Eleventh Amendment’s structural presupposition and the scope of state sovereign immunity, including its application to certain state agents/instrumentalities.
• Leitner v. Westchester Cmty. Coll. — cited for the general rule that sovereign immunity bars suits in federal court by private individuals against non-consenting states.
• Woods v. Rondout Valley Cent. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. — cited for the “arm of the state” concept, extending immunity to state agents/instrumentalities effectively functioning as the state.
• Kentucky v. Graham — anchors the principle that official-capacity suits are treated as suits against the government entity itself, strengthening the immunity analysis for the State Defendants.
• In re Deposit Ins. Agency — recognizes the key exception: a plaintiff may sue a state official in an official capacity for prospective injunctive relief to stop ongoing federal-law violations (the functional pathway associated with Ex parte Young, though not named in the order). The court found the exception inapplicable because Maltese sought only retrospective relief and did not allege ongoing violations.

C. Individual-capacity liability under § 1983 (personal involvement and conspiracy pleading)

• Ashcroft v. Iqbal — beyond pleading standards, it is cited for the requirement that each government official, through their own actions, violated the Constitution.
• Tangreti v. Bachmann — reinforces that individual-capacity liability turns on the defendant’s own conduct; naming a defendant is not enough.
• Patterson v. County of Oneida — similarly emphasizes personal involvement as a prerequisite to individual-capacity liability.
• Gallop v. Cheney — provides the standard for conspiracy claims: conclusory, vague, or general allegations of conspiracy to deprive constitutional rights cannot survive dismissal. This was dispositive of the allegations against Assemblyman Brown in Maltese III.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

A. Why the official-capacity State claims were barred

The court applied a straightforward sovereign immunity framework: the State Defendants (Governor, legislators, and the Board of Elections) are state agents/instrumentalities, and official-capacity claims are treated as claims against New York itself under Kentucky v. Graham. Because Maltese sought retrospective monetary/benefits-type relief (and other non-injunctive relief such as legal fees and academic degrees) and did not allege an ongoing federal-law violation, the prospective-relief exception recognized in In re Deposit Ins. Agency did not apply. The same reasoning supported dismissal of the New York State Board of Elections as a state instrumentality, particularly where the complaint did not allege ongoing unlawful conduct.

B. Why the individual-capacity State claims failed

Even construing the pleadings liberally (Sharikov), the court required plausible factual allegations tying each defendant to a constitutional violation. Under Iqbal, Tangreti, and Patterson, Maltese needed to plead that each official—through their own actions—violated federal rights. The complaint did not allege any concrete involvement by Governor Hochul or Senator Mattera in either the pension dispute or ballot access issue, so claims against them necessarily failed.

As to Assemblyman Brown, the court treated Maltese’s “conspiracy” assertions as insufficient because they lacked supporting factual content. Under Gallop v. Cheney, bare allegations of a conspiracy—without particularized facts suggesting an agreement and concerted action—do not cross the plausibility threshold required by Twombly/Iqbal.

C. Why the City claims were dismissed (and affirmed on an alternative ground)

Although the district court dismissed Maltese II for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Second Circuit invoked Jusino v. Fed'n of Cath. Teachers, Inc. to affirm on any ground supported by the record. Applying Twombly and Iqbal, the court concluded Maltese alleged no nonconclusory facts connecting the City Defendants’ conduct to a cognizable federal claim; the allegations were speculative and largely conclusory, so dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) was warranted.

3.3. Impact

While nonprecedential, the order is practically significant in three ways:

1. It reaffirms the relief-based boundary of sovereign immunity: plaintiffs challenging state conduct in federal court must carefully plead an ongoing federal violation and seek prospective injunctive relief if they want to avoid dismissal of official-capacity claims.
2. It underscores defendant-specific pleading in § 1983 suits: even pro se litigants must allege concrete personal involvement for each defendant, and conspiracy theories must be supported with factual detail.
3. It illustrates appellate flexibility in affirmance grounds: litigants cannot rely on attacking only the district court’s stated rationale if the record supports dismissal on alternative bases.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• State sovereign immunity / Eleventh Amendment: A state generally cannot be sued in federal court by a private person unless it consents or Congress validly abrogates immunity. This protection often extends to state agencies and to state officials sued in their official capacities.
• Official capacity vs. individual capacity: An official-capacity claim is effectively against the government entity; an individual-capacity claim seeks to hold the official personally liable for their own actions.
• Prospective injunctive relief (the operative exception): Federal courts may order a state official to stop an ongoing violation of federal law. Requests for past-due money, retroactive benefits, or compensation for past harms are typically not “prospective.”
• Rule 12(b)(1) vs. Rule 12(b)(6): Rule 12(b)(1) challenges the court’s power to hear the case (jurisdiction). Rule 12(b)(6) challenges whether the complaint alleges a legally sufficient claim.
• Plausibility pleading (Twombly/Iqbal): A complaint must include enough factual detail to make liability plausible, not merely possible; labels, conclusions, and unadorned accusations do not suffice.
• Conspiracy allegations: Courts require specific facts suggesting an agreement and coordinated action; broad claims that defendants “conspired” are not enough.

5. Conclusion

Maltese v. Brown affirms three dismissals by applying settled doctrines with little tolerance for conclusory pleadings: (1) official-capacity claims seeking retrospective relief against state officials and state instrumentalities are barred by state sovereign immunity absent allegations supporting prospective injunctive relief for ongoing federal violations; (2) individual-capacity § 1983 liability requires plausible, defendant-specific allegations of personal involvement; and (3) appellate courts may affirm on any record-supported ground even if it differs from the district court’s stated basis.